Doctors Aim At `Wild' Practices

Surrogate Mothering And `Designer Babies' Ruled Out In Italy

April 04, 1995

ROME — Responding to widespread criticism of a "Wild West" atmosphere in the field of artificial insemination, Italy's physicians have banned "granny mums" and surrogate motherhood, as well as barring lesbians from undergoing the procedure.

In new rules of behavior approved over the weekend, their national association also voted to deny artificial insemination to single women and to ban the use of frozen sperm of dead donors.

The rules ban artificial insemination from being practiced on women over 50 and bar doctors from allowing married couples to seek "designer babies" by choosing sperm based on a donor's physical attributes or social status.

They also prohibit surrogate motherhood, in which a fertilized egg is implanted in another woman to carry the pregnancy.

The decisions are binding on Italian doctors, who risk suspension or expulsion from the professional guild, something that would effectively bar them from practicing medicine.

Some doctors and gay groups said they would disregard the new rules and challenge their constitutionality because they were applied in the absence of national legislation.

In recent years, Roman Catholic Italy has become a paradise for post-menopausal women who want to become mothers. A spate of high-profile cases has led Health Minister Elio Guzzanti to decry what he called "self-service gynecology."

There are some 70 artificial insemination centers and 200 sperm banks in Italy.

Last month, Irene Pivetti, speaker of the lower house of parliament, complained of a "Wild West" and "no-man's land" atmosphere in the world of artificial pregnancies and called for swift national legislation to regulate it.

Last year, Rosanna Della Corte, 62, became the world's oldest mother when she gave birth to a boy.

A donor's eggs, fertilized with her husband's sperm, were implanted in her uterus. Della Corte said recently she planned to try for another child this year.

Italian fertility doctors have also come under fire from some quarters, particularly the Catholic Church, for helping a lesbian have a child by artificial insemination and for inseminating a woman with the frozen sperm of her dead husband.